Research Catalog

End of its rope : how killing the death penalty can revive criminal justice

Title
End of its rope : how killing the death penalty can revive criminal justice / Brandon L. Garrett.
Author
Garrett, Brandon
Publication
  • Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2017.
  • ©2017

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StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
TextUse in library JFD 19-1190Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description
331 pages : illustrations, maps; 23 cm
Summary
"When Henry McCollum was condemned to death in 1983 in rural North Carolina, death sentences were commonplace. In 2015, DNA tests set McCollum free. By then, death sentences were as rare as lightning strikes. To most observers this national trend came as a surprise. What changed? Brandon Garrett hand-collected and analyzed national data, looking for causes and implications of this turnaround. End of Its Rope explains what he found, and why the death penalty's demise can be the catalyst for criminal justice reform. No single factor put the death penalty on the road to extinction, Garrett concludes. Death row exonerations fostered rising awareness of errors in death penalty cases, at the same time that a decline in murder rates eroded law-and-order arguments. Defense lawyers radically improved how they litigate death cases when given adequate resources. More troubling, many states replaced the death penalty with what amounts to a virtual death sentence--life without possibility of parole. Today, the death penalty hangs on in a few scattered counties where prosecutors cling to entrenched habits and patterns of racial bias. We can celebrate the death penalty's demise, and we can learn from it. The failed death penalty experiment teaches us how inept lawyering, overzealous prosecution, race discrimination, wrongful convictions, and excessive punishments undermine the pursuit of justice. Garrett makes a strong closing case for what a future criminal justice system might look like if these injustices were remedied"--
Subject
  • Capital punishment > United States
  • Judicial error > United States
  • Discrimination in capital punishment > United States
  • Life imprisonment > United States
  • Defense (Criminal procedure) > United States
  • Evidence, Criminal > United States
  • Criminals > Rehabilitation > United States
  • Capital punishment
  • Criminals > Rehabilitation
  • Defense (Criminal procedure)
  • Discrimination in capital punishment
  • Evidence, Criminal
  • Judicial error
  • Life imprisonment
  • United States
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (pages 281-319) and index.
Contents
An awakening -- Inevitability of innocence -- Mercy vs. justice -- The great American death penalty decline -- The defense lawyering effect -- Murder insurance -- The other death penalty -- The execution decline -- End game -- The triumph of mercy.
Call Number
JFD 19-1190
ISBN
  • 9780674970991
  • 0674970993
LCCN
2017011498
OCLC
981957927
Author
Garrett, Brandon, author.
Title
End of its rope : how killing the death penalty can revive criminal justice / Brandon L. Garrett.
Publisher
Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2017.
Copyright Date
©2017
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 281-319) and index.
Local Note
AUTH: UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA SCHOOL OF LAW.
Research Call Number
JFD 19-1190
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